Episode-1023
Chapter : 2045
Lloyd felt a shock of cold energy—not the cold of ice, but the cold of a deep, empty night. His heart, which had been slowing down, suddenly stopped. Not because he was dying, but because his personal timeline had been unhooked from the world.
"The Clock... Strikes," Lloyd said.
His voice didn't travel through the air. It vibrated through the logic of the universe.
Beelzebub’s golden eyes narrowed. For the first time since he turned white, the Prince looked confused. He was inhaling with everything he had, but the man in front of him wasn't getting any closer. Lloyd was stuck in the air, ten feet away, like a fly caught in invisible amber.
"What is this?" Beelzebub demanded. He increased the suction. The swamp beneath them actually lifted into the sky, turning into a massive whirlpool of mud. "Why aren't you moving? I am erasing the space! You have to come to me!"
"You're eating the space, Beelzebub," Lloyd said. His monotone voice was back, steady and cold. "But you're not eating the time. You're trying to pull a man who isn't in your 'current' anymore."
Lloyd raised his arm. It felt heavy, like he was moving through thick syrup.
In his hand, a weapon appeared. It wasn't a sword made of steel. It was a shard of pure, gray light. It looked like a broken clock hand, jagged and sharp.
"Zafira," Lloyd commanded. "Seventh Form."
The Weaver of Eras leaned over Lloyd’s shoulder. Her porcelain hand covered his. Her clock-eye spun so fast it became a blur of gold.
"Stasis," Zafira whispered.
Lloyd didn't lunge. He didn't throw the weapon. He just swung the shard of light through the air in a simple, horizontal line.
The shard didn't cut Beelzebub’s skin. It didn't have to. It cut the moment.
CHIME.
A sound like a crystal bell ringing in an empty cathedral echoed through the swamp.
The effect was like someone hitting the pause button on a video.
The rushing wind... stopped.
The flying mud and trees... froze in the air.
The white light of the sun... hung still in the mist.
And Beelzebub?
The White Prince was caught in mid-action. His mouth was open, his golden eyes wide with shock, his hands reaching out to grab the air. He was a statue. A perfect, bone-white statue of a god caught in a lie.
The "Concept of Consumption"—the law he was using to eat reality—was now locked in a five-second loop. He was trying to inhale, but the time required for the breath to happen had been removed.
Lloyd dropped from the air. He landed on his feet, his knees buckling for a second before he caught his balance. He was breathing hard, his chest heaving as the air rushed back into the area.
He looked at the frozen demon.
Beelzebub was still in there. Lloyd could see the flickers of thought in the Prince’s golden eyes. The demon was trying to break the spell, trying to use his high IQ to find a logical way out of a time-lock. But time doesn't follow logic; it follows the Weaver.
"Five seconds," Lloyd said, wiping a smear of blood from his nose. He looked at his own hand. It was shaking. Using Zafira took a massive toll on his physical body. It felt like his bones were made of glass.
He walked toward the frozen Prince. The mud was quiet now. The "White Hunger" was silent.
"You really are a piece of work, Beelzebub," Lloyd said. He stopped just inches away from the demon’s face. He could see the tiny pores in the marble-white skin. He could see the reflected light in the gold pupils. "You tricked a lot of people. You manipulated the world. You thought you were the smartest guy in the room."
Lloyd leaned in, his face inches from the demon’s ear.
"But you're just a battery," Lloyd whispered. "And I'm the guy who knows how to recycle."
The clock in Lloyd's head was ticking.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
Beelzebub's eyes were screaming. He knew what was coming. He could see the intent in Lloyd's cold, blue eyes. He could feel the reality of his own defeat starting to crack the edges of the stasis.
Lloyd raised his right hand. He didn't make a fist. He didn't summon a blade.
He just waited for the exact millisecond when the time-lock would fail. He was a Major General waiting for the signal to fire. He was an engineer waiting for the machine to hit peak pressure.
Chapter : 2046
The gray light around the Prince began to flicker. The trees in the background started to tremble. The sound of the swamp began to return as a low, distant hum.
"Almost there," Lloyd muttered.
He stood perfectly still, a silent hunter in a frozen world. He wasn't the "drab duckling" anymore. He wasn't the "Sofa King."
He was the one who was about to close the account.
The fifth second arrived.
The stasis shattered like a sheet of ice.
CRACK.
Reality rushed back in. The wind roared, the mud fell, and Beelzebub’s golden eyes flared with a desperate, final fury as his body began to move again.
But Lloyd was already there.
The shattering of the time-lock sounded like a gunshot in a library.
CRACK.
The sound signaled the return of reality. The wind howled back into existence, the mud splashed down from where it had been suspended in the air, and the roar of the swamp returned. The five seconds of frozen time were over.
Beelzebub, the White Prince of Gluttony, jerked back into motion. His golden eyes, wide with panic, flared as his brain tried to catch up with the missing seconds. He opened his mouth to scream, to cast a spell, to unleash the White Hunger again. He wanted to eat the space between them.
But he was too late.
Lloyd Ferrum was already inside his guard.
Lloyd didn't use a sword. He didn't use a gun. He used his open palm. He slammed his hand directly onto the center of Beelzebub’s chest.
THUD.
The impact wasn't heavy enough to break bones, but it was solid. Skin met the cold, marble-like perfection of the Devil Prince’s chest. Beelzebub looked down, confused. He expected a punch. He expected pain. He didn't expect a touch.
"You like to eat," Lloyd said, his voice flat and cold. "So let's see how it feels to be the meal."
Lloyd focused his mind. He didn't reach for fire or lightning. He reached for the strangest, most parasitic power in his arsenal. He reached for the power he had unlocked in the demon city, the power that turned him into a biological siphon.
"[Void Wood: Life-Eater]," Lloyd commanded.
The change was instant and gruesome.
The skin on Lloyd’s right arm split open. It didn't bleed. Instead, thick, grey roots erupted from his flesh. They weren't made of wood like an oak tree; they looked metallic, like twisted cables of lead and ash. They were ugly, aggressive, and hungry.
The roots didn't grow slowly. They shot out like spikes.
CRUNCH.
The grey roots punched through Beelzebub’s white chest. They didn't just pierce the skin; they burrowed. They twisted and coiled, diving deep into the spiritual cavity where the Devil’s heart should have been.
Beelzebub gasped. It was a sound of pure violation. He looked down at his chest, watching the grey snakes disappear inside him. He tried to push Lloyd away, but his arms wouldn't move. The roots had locked into his nervous system, paralyzing him.
"What... what is this?" Beelzebub wheezed. "Get... out..."
"Hold still," Lloyd said, his face inches from the demon’s. "I'm looking for something specific."
Lloyd closed his eyes. Through the connection of the Void Wood, he could feel everything inside the Prince. He felt the massive, swirling ocean of mana that Beelzebub had stolen over thousands of years. He felt the souls of the people the demon had consumed. It was a chaotic, screaming storm of energy.
But Lloyd wasn't looking for mana. Mana was just fuel. He was looking for the engine.
He pushed the roots deeper, past the layers of magic, past the physical body, searching for the core concept that held Beelzebub together. He was looking for the "Sin."
Every Devil Prince was defined by a rule. Lucifer was Pride. Mammon was Greed. Beelzebub was Gluttony. It wasn't just a personality trait; it was the structural pillar of his existence. If you removed the hunger, the monster would collapse.
"Found it," Lloyd whispered.
Deep in the center of the Prince’s being, Lloyd felt a black, pulsing void. It was a bottomless pit of desire. It was the urge to consume, the need to take. It was the Concept of Gluttony.
"Extract," Lloyd ordered.
The grey roots pulsed. A dark, purple light began to flow from Beelzebub’s chest, traveling up the roots and into Lloyd’s arm.
Beelzebub screamed.
It wasn't a scream of physical pain. It was the scream of someone losing their mind.